Victory banquet candles burned with virgin marrow tallow, chandelier crystals refracting blood-moon hues every three seconds. Layne raised a goblet carved from Alyssa's clavicle, his finger taps drowning out gear-sobs in her spine.
"To eternity." His fangs sparked against the rim. Servants applauded mechanically—their vocal cords replaced with brass whistles, cheers resembling rusted pipe organs.
Alyssa was crucified on the banquet table as a turntable, silver chains through her scapulae linking twelve courses. When the third roast songbird arrived, she spotted her severed finger stuffed inside—fingernail etched with unsent coordinates. Moonflare hatchling burned in her gut, quenched by Layne's azurite wine.
"Dish called 'Muted Messenger'." He dissected the bird, offering her finger to the head steward. "Guess his digestion time?"
The steward's throat bulged with tumors, raven sigils surfacing under skin. Ripping his uniform open, gear-driven doves burst from his chest—each clutching her extracted teeth. Layne snapped his fingers. Doves smashed into chandeliers, glass shards raining as servants' eyes ruptured, revealing micro-cameras.
"Memory purge o'clock." His spider-fractal pupils reflected traitor brands on each nape.
The massacre unfolded with macabre grace. Layne's mechanical spine deployed six tool-tipped tentacles: barbed carving knives, meat-grinding gears, silver holy water vials... He crooned lullabies Alyssa's mother sang while catching arterial spray in his goblet. When tentacles pierced the treasurer's skull, his cranium split open, revealing metal cortex engraved with embezzlement records.
"Grand finale." Layne dipped fingers in brain matter to map coordinates. "Your dear sister purchased three tons of azurite. New altar location?"
Moonflare hawk erupted as Alyssa snapped two chains. Flames exposed wax-melted corpses with mechanical doves buried inside—all oriented toward Kane's hideout. Overturning the table, carnivorous beetles swarmed her wounds, dismantling regenerative metal scales.
"Behold." Layne stomped her detached greave, revealing Wolf Mother's diary page—azurite dust auto-restoring burnt sections. "Who proposed fetal immortality experiments three centuries ago?"
Moonflare phoenix exploded through the ceiling, translucent in moonlight—every feather a screaming bride's face. Layne pressed her wrist into molten silver flowing onto altar grooves, activating vampire bounty scrolls on the ceiling.
Ancient bronze gears spun, bounty posters scattering like bats. Each displayed Alyssa's live feed with escalating rewards. The most horrific detail—Kane's family crest on the signatory list, dated her birthnight twenty years prior.
"Family discount applied." Layne's forked tongue lapped silver-tinged blood from her collarbone brand. "Who do you think is sending Kane's tracking..."
Clocktower explosions interrupted. Alyssa's pupils reflected lab feeds—Kane accessing gene-locks with her severed finger while Evelyn's mechanical doppelganger lay bleeding, clutching Father's signed consent form.
"Perfect timing." Layne's heart-gears ejected a pocket watch with reversing hands. Bounty gears spewed neurotoxin fog. Alyssa's finale vision—her blood crystallizing into ravens clutching charred contract fragments:
Seventh Sacrifice Voluntary ClauseSignatory: Alyssa Silvermoon (neonatal fingerprint)Witness: Kane Shadowclaw
As toxins devoured vision, she heard her three-century-old fetal cries, Layne's clockwork fingers already clasping her newborn mechanical heart.